


Work Relationship

by ddynoliaeth



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Eventual Smut, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Maybe some light angst, Post-Season/Series 03, references to Jared's traumatic past
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-09-05
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:40:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7961062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ddynoliaeth/pseuds/ddynoliaeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Bachmanity 2.0 buys Pied Piper and Erlich loses the tech blog Code/Rag, CJ Cantwell calls him with the news that she's unearthed a story: Richard Hendricks, CEO of Pied Piper, is sleeping with his business developer, Jared Dunn. It's news to everyone involved, especially Richard and Jared. To avoid exacerbating the issue, they're now pretending to be a couple, but both harbour very real, very strong romantic feelings for each other. It's a dangerous game they play in Palo Alto.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Work Relationship

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redshirtlondon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redshirtlondon/gifts).



> Okay here we go another fucking chaptered fic. Hopefully I'll actually, you know, finish this one. That'd be cool. Anyway, gifted to redshirtlondon because all we do is cry about Jared and they helped out with brainstorming for this mother.
> 
> If you like this please consider commissioning me to write some fic for you!  
> http://vincenoir.tumblr.com/post/161648060242/hey-so-im-severely-strapped-for-cash-at-the

“RICHARD!”

It’s entirely too early in the morning for this. 

Erlich barrels down the hallway, stopping just short of Richard’s work desk to slam a piece of paper down in front of him, pressing half the keyboard of Richard’s computer with his gorilla palm in the process. Across the room, Jared stands from his station, making that worried face he gets every time somebody even slightly raises their voice. He wrings his hands like a sweet old woman. 

Richard takes his headphones off, already thinking of seven different reasons why whatever it is that has Erlich’s panties in a twist isn’t his fault. He forces the bile building at the back of his throat down and reaches for the paper.

Which is covered in a scrawl even his doctor couldn’t pretend to decipher - and that man has bullshitted his way through a lot of prescriptions with his chicken scratch. 

“Uhhh… Erlich? What exactly does any of this say?”

“It says that _you_ , Richard, have royally _fucked_ us over,” Erlich growls, turning Richard in his seat to face him and shoving a fat sausage of a finger right in his face. “I just got off the phone with Code/Rag and C J - who, you might fucking remember, I have no control over any more thanks to Gavin fucking Belson - C J tells me that you, Richard Hendricks, have been _sleeping with_ Jared - fucking I-don’t-even-know-his-last-name - behind my back!” 

Richard stares. Erlich heaves with barely contained rage. Jared pauses, then starts to giggle, drawing two pairs of severely unamused eyes towards him.

“S-sorry!” He squeaks, shaking with the effort of keeping his laughter inside. “I just. C J Cantwell thinks that Richard is sleeping with me? Why on Earth would she think that?”

“Because - and here’s the real kicker - Richard here _told his ex girlfriend he was_.”

That stops Jared’s chuckling in its tracks. His eyes go wide, his arms circle around himself in that little way that means he’s feeling vulnerable and frightened, like he thinks he’s the butt of some cruel joke. “Richard?” he asks, voice suddenly very small.

“What? No! I didn’t! I never said that to anyone, because _it isn’t true!_ ” 

“Yeah? Then why does C J have a source willing to testify to the fact that it is, and that you told her about it _two years ago_ at TechCrunch Disrupt?” 

“I - what?”

“She has some killer fucking quotes from the both of you, too. She says that in response to the question “he’s your partner, isn’t he” - ‘he’ here meaning that snivelling little piece of shit over there - you, Richard, said “yeah, he is”. And you!” Erlich shouts, looking over at Jared with unconcealed contempt. While he’s never been particularly fond of Jared, now it seems even worse than that first night when Jared had showed up at the launch party for Pied Piper and Erlich had looked at him like he wasn’t worth the shit he scraped off his boot after kicking a dog up the arse. He snatches the paper out of Richard’s hands and uses it as a reference. “You were shouting at someone - fucking _typical_ \- saying that, and I quote; “You think you can come between me and Richard Hendricks? We’re partners, okay? And I've devoted every second of my waking life for the past two months to him, okay? I am devoted to him and to the precious thing that we're building together! I'm his partner.” So. Either the two of you fess up right now and we start figuring out how to deal with this - because, as I said, I have no control over Code/Rag any more and this story is going to print whether we like it or not - or I kick the both of you into the fucking gutter and sell Pied Piper for fucking peanuts and let you go bankrupt. Your fucking call, Richard.”

Richard has absolutely nothing to say to any of this. He can barely even remember talking to Shelly at TechCrunch what with all the shit that’s happened in the last couple years, let alone say whether any of his words were accurately quoted. Although, he’s pretty damn sure he didn’t tell her that he was _sleeping with Jared_. 

“Why do you even care?”

“Why? _Why?_ Because when you’re the CEO of a company, Richard, you can’t have scandals following you around about you _fucking_ your _subordinate_! Especially not if that subordinate is a man! This is _Silicon Valley_ , Richard! Homophobia may be dead out there in the real world but here in Palo Alto it’s alive and well and waiting in the wings to destroy a company. And, if you forgot, I own this company so it’s my fucking ass on the line.”

“Erlich, if I may?” Jared says, hesitantly approaching as if he expects to be struck if he gets too close. “I believe what has happened here is that this source of C J’s has overheard a private conversation between me and Monica that occurred at a time in which I was severely sleep deprived and emotional, and misconstrued exactly what was being said. I was upset that Monica had been doing so much for you all, and felt as though I had been made redundant - which was particularly difficult for me after having been on Peter Gregory’s island for four days. I meant partners in a strictly business sense, and-”

“Shut the fuck up, Jared,” Erlich says in his monotone ‘I haven’t actually been listening’ voice. “Richard, I need you to tell me the truth.”

“The truth is that Jared and I are just friends,” Richard replies, finally getting that toad out of his throat. He can see Jared light up from the corner of his eye at the word ‘friends’, as if he thought they were nothing more than business colleagues. As if he didn’t know that Richard was indebted to him forever for constantly saving his scrawny arse in the big wide world of business. “Shelly misunderstood. So, I don’t know, just call C J back and tell her that. Tell her Jared was just upset about business stuff and Shelly got the wrong idea.”

“I can’t do that, Richard. You know why? Because C J’s already _posted_ the _fucking_ story!”

“Wait, I-I thought you said she called you?”

“Yeah. To warn me. Not to get my fucking take on it!”

“Well, shit.”

“Yeah, _no_ shit. So what the fuck are you gonna do?”

“What am I gonna do? What are you gonna do? Erlich this is the sort of thing you’re supposed to be doing!”

“Guys-” Jared starts, but they’re not listening to him.

“Richard, that was back when I was Chief Evangelism Officer. I _own_ the fucking company now! This is _your_ problem. Fix it!”

“Guys-”

“I don’t know how! I’m not good at PR, you know that!”

“Guys!”

“What, Jared?” Richard shouts, anxiety raising his voice when he normally would never yell at him. Jared flinches, but continues strong.

“While I realised this is probably an unpopular opinion, I think that, maybe, the truth will only cause further scandal over this. That perhaps the best course of action here is to lean into this, play along until it blows over and people forget about it.”  
“What?” Richard asks, voice pitching up about four octaves and eyes bugging out of his face. 

“Wait, Richard, shut up,” Erlich snaps, waving his hand in the vague direction of Richard and slapping him in the nose, ostensibly by accident. “He might be onto something here.”

“Fighting back at this stage with a statement that we are not romantically involved will only cause greater media attention. If we pretend to be together - only for a month or two, I can assure you - and that we were never necessarily hiding it, then the entire thing will seem like a non-story and things will likely go back to the way they were quite quickly.”

“You can’t be fucking serious,” Richard deadpans, eyes huge. 

“No, that actually makes a lot of sense,” Erlich says with a shudder at having to admit to agreeing with Jared. “We make it lose traction by acting as if it’s not a big deal because you two have been together for two years and just aren’t into the whole PDA thing.”

“Of course, we will have to go on a few dates in the next couple of weeks, just to keep up appearances.”

“You two are fucking mental,” Richard mutters, running his hands over his face. There is absolutely no way he can pretend to be Jared Dunn’s boyfriend. The fact that he so desperately wants to be his boyfriend for real has no baring on it whatsoever. 

“Sorry, Richard, but it’s been decided,” Erlich states with the kind of finality that hammers nails into coffins. “You and Jared are officially an item. Just don’t fuck in my house - it’s not a homophobic thing, I just can’t stand the thought of you two specifically doing anything like that in the house I spent good hard-earned money on.” 

He wanders away, likely in search of his stash to smoke the memories of the morning’s events into oblivion. The door to his room slams closed.

“Yeah, well, we won’t, because we’re not actually together!” Richard shouts after him.

“Richard?”

He squeezes his eyes shut and takes a deep breath, turning to look at Jared, standing awkwardly across the desk from him.

“Yeah, Jared?”

“I hope this isn’t too uncomfortable for you. I only want what’s best for the company. And for you. This will likely blow over in only a couple of weeks, so you won’t have to pretend to be interested in me romantically for very long. I will try to make it as comfortable for you as possible.”

“Yeah, Jared,” Richard says, still reeling from the last few minutes, from apparently having the entire thing decided without his input. He’s going to be Jared Dunn’s boyfriend.

Fake boyfriend.

Fuck, this is going to end badly.


End file.
